Review: War of the Worlds

Across the immeasurable gulf of cyberspace, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic, minds immeasurably superior to my own, regarded my console with envious eyes and slowly but surely, drew their plans against me.

The War of the Worlds has sent shockwaves down the ages, impacting upon each generation of culture – HG Wells’s novel created much discussion on social Darwinism among Victorian Britons; Orson Welles’s radio play caused a panic among war-fearing Americans in 1938; George Pal’s 1953 Hollywood reimagination updated the look and technology for post-war audiences; and Jeff Wayne’s unique rock opera of 1978 gave us a musical definition.

Well THAT was a close one

In short, War of the Worlds has been done before and, often, done well. So Other Ocean are probably very brave to put themselves up against their cultural predecessors.

However, they haven’t come unprepared. Sir Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation, X-Men) narrates the game as the journalist protagonist, following such luminaries as Richard Burton and Orson Welles to intone that famous opening phrase somewhat pathetically satirized in my opening paragraph.

And he does a good job, never quite reaching the highs of Burton or Welles but providing an engaging and interesting constant vocal companion to the gamer as they progress. This actually is more important than might normally be required because you will hear a lot of the narration repeated. Many times. This is because death is always near as War of the Worlds plays it hardcore.

The game is an old-fashioned 2D sidescrolling platformer with the developers even going so far as to cite the style and rotoscoping of Prince of Persia among their inspirations. However, a few modern mechanics have been thrown in to freshen the experience.

Set in 1953, the game’s story blends the setting of the novel with the screenplay of the Pal movie, giving us a London location but Hollywood art direction as lurid green lamps pulse from the sanguine Martian machines. The player is Arthur Clark, a man making his way through a shattered London to find his fiancée and brother in the immediate wake of the invasion.

Lasers; for all of your genocidal needs.

The art and sound style is often breathtaking. In the opening stages,as the invasion unfolds, the background and foregrounds are packed with action, causing me to stop and watch as vast fighting tripods stalked through the city or panicked crowds hurried past the camera. It is a highly atmospheric start.

But all good things end. Soon, the foreground art becomes distracting often obscuring your character at key moments and this is not a game to give you second chances. Mistime a jump or overshoot a forward roll and you will be punished and the punishment is death. Over and over.

And that, in fairness, is what hardcore is about – no margins for error. However, the rule cuts both ways. We may not expect mercy from the game but we do expect timely accuracy and it is here that War of the Worlds struggles.

The character is very ponderous in movement and controls can be sluggish, especially when reversing direction. A lot is made by the developers of the fact that the game needs only the D-pad and two buttons to play it. Oddly, it still seems fiddly despite this conservative range of options.

Further, there are a couple of gameplay bottlenecks of such nerve-stretching difficulty that patience is sorely tested. For instance, in fleeing the tripod during the Edgware Road level, the player will find hard cover of inconsistent quality. What doesn’t work one moment works fine on another run through. Another issue comes when the behaviour of hover-drones changes without warning, which is a bit of a tough move even in a hardcore game. Also, during many of the early sections, checkpoints are patchy in function and inconsistently spaced out.

These are infuriating faults and could cause some gamers to hurl down their controllers in frustration and switch to another game. However, this would be a shame because as the game progresses it begins to blossom.

Instances like this one may shock gamers, but don’t give up!

A fascinating emotional cutscene unfolds when Arthur manages to get home and the EC4 level, where he must navigate his way past the outstretched fronds of the red weed, is brilliant. Later, the story is punctuated with radio broadcasts that make a surprising and not entirely successful attempt to inject humor into the tale.

Fans of the story will lament a few missing features;I would have loved to have seen the sequence where the HMS Thunder Child destroys two tripods before being sunk herself.

At its price (800 MS points on XBL), War of the Worlds is a diverting game. Its atmospheric opening levels and challenging, interesting later ones are probably enough to overcome some control issues and a few dodgy levels in the middle of the game.

Tested on 360

Score: 6/10 Okay

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The game does sound very interesting but I think I’ll wait for a while. I’ve wanted to pick up Max Payne 1 and 2 for a while now so if I download anything, it’ll probably be them. I will keep an eye out for a future sale though. I’ll also try and check out the book and radio drama as I’d love to listen to them!

http://www.press2reset.com RandyL84

Great review. I am curious to give this game a shot as I love the almost Limbo type feel.